


I get by (with a little help from my friends)

by aelangreenleaf



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:54:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23637880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aelangreenleaf/pseuds/aelangreenleaf
Summary: “A fr-friend, helping a friend?” she says, nearly whispering, and she can feel herself shivering with want as his fingers keep tracing a line in her skin, drifting lower and lower.He leans forward, his lips brushing her ear. “Not exactly,” he breathes, and she is done for.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 16
Kudos: 254





	I get by (with a little help from my friends)

“You won’t miss the team drinks again tonight, right Bri?”

She closes her eyes for a brief moment, steels herself. _You can do this_ , she tells herself. “I’ll be there, Margaery.”

Her friend smiles up at her, radiant and light as always. “Jaime asked after you, at Wednesday’s drinks. Wanted to know if you were ill…” her friend says, letting it hang in the air as her smile turns into a sly grin.

Brienne manages to not choke on her tea. “A good teammate,” she replies, her voice only a little bit unsteady, and Margaery walks off to her next class laughing.

* * *

_She’s sitting on a sad, sagging couch in Addam Marbrand’s house, her drink nearly empty as she watches Margaery sat across from her on Addam’s lap. She can’t say she’s surprised by the evening’s turn of events – those two have been eye-fucking each other for weeks – but she can’t help the little, tiny,_ miniscule _bit of jealousy that tugs at her heart when seeing them. It was the same earlier in the evening when Sansa had stumbled out the front door with Podrick Payne, the quiet little freshman, and the same again when Asha had pushed Ellaria up against a wall, devouring her mouth before Addam had laughed and told them: “Get out and get a room, for fuck’s sake”._  
  
_She’s tired of being a virgin, she thinks to herself as Margaery and Addam begin what seems to be a very intense war of tongues. She can feel her cheeks burn a little with deep, internal embarrassment and she downs her drink and gets up to her feet, only stumbling a little._

_She’s twenty-two years old, a Dean’s list student, a star athlete on her swim team (though she is loath to admit it), and she feels like the last virgin alive in the world._  
  
_She sighs, picking her way carefully (and quickly, given the sighs coming from her friend’s general direction) out of the nearly abandoned living room, making her way out to the back porch to get some fresh air. She’d thought she’d had something with Hyle Hunt, for a while, and that maybe she would get to_ finally _see what all the fuss was about, but then one day he came by her dorm room, tail between his legs, and admitted that it was all a part of bet with a few of the backup players from the water polo team. It took her a long time and a lot of therapeutic glasses of wine with her friends to feel like she had even come close to recovering from that experience (and, even though she hates to admit it, the fact that Ron Connington had his scholarship taken away helped_ just a bit).

_She’s halfway through the kitchen door, new beer in hand, when she runs into Jaime._

_He turns at her arrival, already smiling at her, and her heart does that annoying thing just like every other time she is near him._

_“I was worried you might have left,” he says, clinking his half-finished beer against hers._

_“It was, uh, getting a little crowded…” she replies, trying and failing to keep the resulting blush off of her cheeks._

_Jaime laughs, gesturing with his head back towards the living room. “Let me guess – Addam and Margaery?”_

_She only blushes harder in response, thinking of the sounds the two had been making when she’d left the room._

_He chuckles, raises his glass in a mock toast to the couple inside. “You_ did _call it a week ago,” he tells her, still chuckling._

_Brienne thinks of Margaery & Addam, Sansa & Pod, Ellaria & Asha. She thinks of all the other girls in her dorm, their boyfriends, their girlfriends, their one night stands and committed relationships and everything in between. She even thinks of Jaime & Cersei [he’d confessed it to her one night after a tough swim meet in Oldtown, drinking cheap Citadel beer and chatting until the pub closed]. She’s always known that she was… less than conventionally attractive, but even after all of the bullying as a child, even after the taunts in high school, even after that stupid, shitty bet from the water polo team – even after all of that, she still can’t stop herself from dreaming._

_“Tarth?” she hears, realizing that she’s been lost in her own thoughts. “Are you okay?”_

_She tries to smile at him, but it sort of falters in the middle, and she takes a long pull from her beer before answering. “It’s nothing.”_

_“Are you sure? You look far more melancholy than usual, Tarth,” he replies, half joking._

_“I-want-what-they-have,” she blurts out all at once, and she is shocked to hear the words come out of her mouth. She closes her eyes, embarrassed._

_“You want what – oh. What they_ have _, you mean,” he is saying, but her eyes are still squeezed fully shut, her cheers blazing red._

_“Wait –“ he starts, his hand reaching out to touch her shoulder, “have you never…?” She can hear the surprise, the incredulity in his voice as he speaks, and if it were possible she feels like she could spontaneously erupt into a bright red flame of embarrassment._

_“Tarth…?” he asks again after a long moment, and she manages to shake her head no._

_“Not even once?” he is saying, and his voice his closer now, right next to her shoulder._

_“No,” she replies, her voice barely a squeak. “After Hyle… the bet, I –“ she swallows, takes a deep breath. “No, I’ve never been with anyone.”_

_“Oh,” he replies, and she wishes she could sink into the deck of the porch, hide away from whatever he has to say next._

_And then she nearly jumps out of her skin when she can feel him speak, his breath on her neck. “Would you like to?” he murmurs softly against her ear, and, shocked, she opens her eyes._

* * *

She arrives at Addam’s a bit later than usual, hoping that the rest of her teammates will be at least a drink or two in before she arrives. She skipped the mid-week drinks on Wednesday (relatively easy to get out of in the middle of the week), but she knew even before Margaery had brought it up that avoiding the Friday team drinks would be nearly impossible.

She hesitates at the door, taking a deep breath. It’s not just Addam’s house, it’s Jaime’s too, and once she goes through that door she knows she won’t be able to avoid him anymore.

Her hand closes around the handle, and she steps inside.

* * *

_She steps back away from him, unable to believe she has heard him correctly. “What-what do you mean?”_

_He grins at her – the classic Jaime Lannister grin (sly, teasing, charming) that he most definitely uses to his advantage – and doesn’t answer right away. His eyes slide over her body, and she can feel her body burn under his gaze. “What are friends for?” he tells her, his eyes laughing, and he is moving closer again, his hand reaching out towards her, his fingertips tracing a pattern across her collar bone, her shoulder, her arm._

_[Somewhere in her mind she is convinced this is a dream, that she’s hit her head and fallen unconscious, that she’s had too many drinks and fallen asleep, because there is_ no way _in any version of reality that Jaime Lannister, her best friend and possibly the most attractive man she’s ever seen in her life, is_ volunteering _to sleep with her.]_

_But he’s real, he is flesh & blood in front of her, and the gentle laughter in his eyes has shifted to something more serious, more… hungry, and she’s blushing yet again because, despite herself, she’s never been this turned on in her life._

_“A fr-friend, helping a friend?” she says, nearly whispering, and she can feel herself shivering with want as his fingers keep tracing a line in her skin, drifting lower and lower._

_He leans forward, his lips brushing her ear. “Not exactly,” he breathes, and she is done for._

* * *

She stands in the doorway for a moment, uncertain where to go next. She can see Margaery in the corner, already leaning in towards Addam, her hands sliding up his chest. She sees Jon, Sansa, & Podrick all deep in conversation, and starts to move towards them, but then a flash of movement of blonde hair and tan skin behind them catches her eye, and she darts into the room, heading in the opposite direction.

* * *

_They move in silence towards Jaime’s bedroom, the last few stragglers from the party all but forgotten. She downs the last dregs of her beer on the way, hoping that she might get just a little bit more liquid courage to go through with this._

_[Should she even be doing this? Should_ they _even be doing this? They are friends – they’ve been friends for the last three years of university, from the first tense days between them in swim training_ (“ _are you a_ woman?!” _, he’d asked, and she’d promptly dunked him under the water until Coach Stark had forcibly pushed them apart.) They’ve seen each other at their best and their worst, and she knows her university years would have been all the more horrible without him.]_

_They are his door now, and she thinks – she_ knows _– they shouldn’t do this, he is only doing her a favour, he’s only being a friend, and she opens her mouth to tell him that, but then he is pulling her inside the room, pushing the door closed, and as his eyes meet hers again the words die in her mouth._

_“You’ve really never done_ this _before?” he asks, his eyes still locked with hers._

_She blushes for the hundredth time. “No,” she whispers, closing her eyes in embarrassment._

_“Brienne,” he murmurs, his fingers gently brushing her cheek. “Look at me.”_

_She blinks her eyes open, meets his gaze and tries to hold it, tries to stop the colour from rising in her cheeks._

_There is a softness, a gentleness in his eyes now as he looks up at her. “Do you want to do this?”_

_Despite the embarrassment, the apprehension, the nerves – despite it all, her answer comes to her lips without hesitation: “_ Yes _,” she breathes, her heart already racing._

_He smiles at her,_ really _smiles, and she can’t help but smile back. “Then you have to trust me,” he says, before leaning forward and pressing his lips against hers._

_She’s never been kissed before – not a_ true _kiss anyway, a kiss without malice or laughter at her expense. Jaime’s lips are warm against hers, his kiss gentle to start, but when his tongue sweeps out to brush along her lips, she feels as if her very skin has turned to flame, the heat rising within her, telling her to reach out for more, more,_ more.

_Without thinking, she opens her mouth to his, her hands reaching out to pull him in closer. He grins against her mouth, and then his teeth scraping along her bottom lip, and she can’t help the gasp that escapes her, nearly breaking their kiss._

_He moves his lips across her jaw, her neck, her collarbone, his kisses and caresses like a firebrand on her skin. She pulls him up to her mouth again, her tongue meeting his, and she is pulling at his shirt, her fingers scrabbling at the buttons needing to touch and feel and taste. She’s seen him nearly naked a thousand times, seen the way the long, sinewy lines of him as he dives into the pool, and yet – and yet…_

_Jaime catches her staring, and she is shocked yet again to see how much raw want there is in his eyes. “Brienne,” he murmurs, and then she is kissing him all over again._

_He lifts the bottom of her shirt, tugging it up and over her head, and then his fingers are at her bra, unclasping it. His hands slide down her thighs, pulling down her underwear, and then she is naked before him, and she fights the urge to run and hide._

_“Come here,” he whispers, and she is kissing him again, her own hands lightly wandering over his body, ghosting over his skin._

_He laughs against her lips: “I won’t break, Brienne,” taking her hands and pressing them hard against him._

_She loses tracks of things then – his mouth trailing along her breasts, his lips closing around her nipple, her breath coming hard and fast as she gasps his name out loud. Somewhere, somehow, Jaime rids himself of his trousers, and then he is pressing her down against the mattress, his lips and hands and tongue tracing patterns into her flesh and setting her skin on fire._

_And then – oh, and then – she can feel the hard length of him against her, and despite the fact that his fingers are slipping into her, and his lips are on her throat, she can feel herself blush at knowing that he is hard for her._

_She moans his name, her fingers scrabbling along his back as if she were a climber falling from height and trying for something,_ anything, _to hold on to, to catch her breath. He grins at her again, his eyes blown dark, and he positions himself between her legs, and she brings herself back down to earth long enough to meet his gaze._

_“Are you sure?” he asks her once more, suddenly serious, his eyes searching hers for confirmation. “There’s no coming back from this.”_

_There’s something… something there, she would_ swear _, behind those words, something beyond college party lust and ‘helping a friend’, but then it is gone again and she can feel him pressing into her heat, edging closer and closer but yet, agonizingly, not quite there._

_“Yes,” she says, swallowing hard as he smiles down at her, almost fondly, before it turns to something…_ hungry _, and then he is pressing himself inside her, and it is like nothing she has ever felt before in her life._

* * *

She can see him try to wend his way to her through the party, his eyes tracking her, attempting to catch her attention. She is lucky that it is such a big party this evening – the water polo team brought their reserves with them, and though she is loath to see Hyle Hunt and Ronnet Connington again, it means there are enough people to hide around and in between.

She manages to disappear into a large group crowded into a hallway, positioning herself between Sandor’s profile and the wall behind her. She tries to pay attention to their conversation (Sansa’s little sister Arya is describing in vivid detail her personally ranked top ten ancient Westerosi battle techniques), but she can’t help but keep her eyes on alert for two bright green eyes in the searching for her, trying to pick her out from the crowd. She excuses herself from the group after a few minutes, and heads outside to try and catch her breath –

And runs straight into Jaime Lannister.

* * *

_Afterwards – after they have pulled away from each other, Jaime kissing her lazily even as he moves his body away… after he pulls the blankets up over them, after he falls asleep…_

_She can’t make the little nagging voices in her head stay quiet. The voices that tell her_ this was just a pity fuck, he was just bored, he was drunk _over and over and over again. The voices that eat at away at her until she is pulling on her clothes in the dark, stealing away in the night before the dawn light has even broken._

* * *

She doesn’t quite know what to say, and she feels somewhat relieved to hear him speak first.

“Are you avoiding me, Tarth?” he demands, closing the door to the kitchen behind them. The night is quiet around them, stark contrast to the heavy beat of music and hum of voices just beyond the door.

She scrunches her eyes shut, wishing she’d prepared herself a bit more for this moment. “I-I’m sorry I left so suddenly, Jaime, I – I just thought it would be easier.”

His eyes narrow at her. “What would be easier?”

She shifts back and forth on her feet, wishing she didn’t have to say it. “Facing me, I mean. Seeing me in the morning, in your bed. You felt sorry for me, you were doing me a favour, and I –“

He barks out a laugh, incredulous. “I was _doing you a favour?”_

_S_ he can feel her cheeks go red – did he really want her to say it? “You were doing me a favour by sleeping with me,” she all but whispers, fighting (and succeeding) to keep her eyes on him.

He exhales hard, runs a hand through his hair. “Is that honestly what you thought? That I felt sorry for you, and that’s why I suggested we sleep together?”

“‘What are friends for?’“, she whispers, echoing him, and he sighs, closing his eyes.

“I don’t know how to flirt,” he starts after a long moment, leaning back hard against the side of the house. “I’ve only been with Cersei, and I can’t say I learned anything useful from that relationship when it comes to flirting. I’ve never even ever liked anyone else before you.”

Her breath catches in her throat. “Wh-what?”

He laughs softly at her stutter. “I’ve liked you for months, Tarth. I tried to ask you to the movies two months ago, but then you ended up inviting Pod and Sansa and Margaery, so I figured I had to be more clear. I invited you over for dinner six weeks ago, but you just laughed and said I must be desperate for a date, and said we should just get pizza and watch the game with the team at the bar. I thought -” he pauses, taking a deep breath, “I figured, maybe you just didn’t like me like that, maybe you just wanted to be friends. And I could live with that.”

She feels like there is a lead weight on her chest, and she grips the railing of the porch to steady herself.

He looks over at her, smiles softly. “But then last week, last week at the party, when you said you wanted what they had, I took a chance. I was a bit drunk, it made me bold, but it seemed like maybe you wanted me more than just friends.”

His smiles turns sad then, as he turns to look at her. “If you don’t feel that way, Brienne – if you still just want to be friends, it’s fine. It’s just – you don’t have to avoid me.”

She feels – she feels as if someone has stolen the ground from beneath her feet, as if the very earth has crumbled away, and she is falling into a chasm deep below. Jaime – Jaime Lannister - her very handsome, talented, funny best friend – likes her?

“I don’t understand,” she blurts out loud, shocking herself in the process.

He furrows his brow. “Don’t understand what?”

“You – you like me?”

He chuckles a bit. “Yeah, that was what I was trying to get across.”

“You didn’t just sleep with me because – because you felt sorry for me?”

His eyes go wide. “Do you still think that? Do you think I’ve been chasing you around this party, texting & calling you for the past week, trying to catch you after class because I pity you?” He moves towards her now, and she steps back once, twice, without thinking. Her back comes up against the railing, and she gasps as he comes in close.

“Do you think the way I wanted you, the way I touched you, the way I fucked you was out of _pity?_ ” he asks, and there is tension now in his voice, his green eyes burning as they lock with hers.

The smell of him this close to her, the warmth from his body near hers… she thinks of how it felt when he pressed her down into the mattress, when he kissed her until her lips felt raw, when his fingers delved so deeply into her that she sighed his name over and over and over again. Her mouth goes dry, and she can’t stop herself from reaching out and touching him.

“I-I guess not,” she whispers, her fingers sliding along his bicep, his forearm.

He chuckles again, but lower now, gruffer. “You guess not?”

She closes her eyes, pulls all the courage she’s ever had. “I like you too,” she breathes, eyes still screwed shut.

She gasps with surprise as he brings his hand up to cup her cheek. She blinks her eyes open, meeting his gaze again, his lips already curling up into a smile.

“We’ve sort of gone about this backwards, haven’t we?” he remarks, coming in even closer.

“Seems like it,” she whispers.

“Shall we kick it off the right way now?” he murmurs, pressing his lips to hers before she can even finish nodding in agreement. 

* * *

_Later, when they are tangled up in his bed, his mouth tracing a line across her skin, she thinks of a quote she heard once, and whispers it into his hair._

_He laughs into the flesh of stomach, turns his face up to look at hers. "Friends really_ do _make the best lovers," he agrees, risng up and kissing her until she can't think at all.  
_


End file.
